Martin Rudwick

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Martin Rudwick (often Martin JS Rudwick ; born 1932) is a British paleontologist and historian of science with a research focus on geosciences and biological sciences . He is Professor Emeritus of the University of California, San Diego and has been researching his return to England in 1998 as "affiliated research scholar" at the University of Cambridge , Department of History of Science and Philosophy of Science (Department of History and Philosophy of Science).

Rudwick's research and publications focus on geological and life sciences history , the development of the pre-human earth epoch, European science in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the historical relationships between scientific and religious methods.

Life

Martin Rudwick comes from a scientifically oriented family. His father was a physicist . Although he hated physics, he was already interested in geology in his youth and enthusiastically collected fossils . He was also interested in history. The British education system of the 1940s forced him to choose one direction - he chose science. As he later said, this decision was extremely difficult for him. With a scholarship in geology, which was unusual at the time , he went to Cambridge.

Paleontology and history of science

In 1958 he received his Ph.D. in paleozoology from the University of Cambridge. and then taught paleontology at the Cambridge Department of Geology for several years . During this time he published numerous works on the evolution of invertebrates , which were later summarized in his first book Living and Fossil Brachiopods . He then expanded his research increasingly to historical and philosophical questions.

“I found myself confronting fundamental problems in paleontology, which led me in a historical direction under the influence of reading form and function by ES Russell (1916). That led me to Cuvier. I felt he had something that I - as a 20th-century paleontologist - could learn from about reconstructing the mode of life of extinct invertebrates, of brachiopods. I was imagining how these extinct animals had lived - and the relation between their way of life and their preserved structure - in order to reconstruct a complete evolutionary history of the ways of life of these now rather obscure shellfish. "

- Martin Rudwick, in: Michael Meier: Bringing History to Science and ....

“I was confronted with fundamental problems in paleontology, which, influenced by the reading of Form and Function by Edward Stewart Russell (1916) , led me in a historical direction. That brought me to Cuvier . I had the feeling that I - a paleontologist of the 20th century - could learn something from him, for example about the reconstruction of the way of life of extinct invertebrates, the brachiopods . I imagined how these extinct animals had lived - and the relationship between their way of life and their preserved structure - in order to reconstruct a complete evolutionary history of the way of life of these rather unexplored shellfish. "

- translation

Rudwick's approach to the history of science in palaeontology immediately met with great approval from the Cambridge student body, but initially encountered resistance from various colleagues and historians who accused him of too much speculation and "Whiggishness" (Whig history).

Earth and Life Sciences

1967 changed Rudwick to the Cambridge Department of History of Science and Philosophy of Science (Department of History and Philosophy of Science) and concentrated his work on geological and life science (life sciences) issues. In 1974 the University of Amsterdam appointed him Professor of History and Social Aspects of Natural Sciences . Between 1981 and 1985 he was Visiting Professor at Princeton and Jerusalem Universities and Visiting Scholar in Paris .

In 1986 Rudwick received a call from Princeton University as professor of the history of science and went to the United States. In 1988 he moved to the University of California, San Diego , where he also taught history of science. He also founded here with colleagues in philosophy and sociology, the graduate program (graduate program) in sociology of science (science studies). In 1994/95 he received a research fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation . In this fellowship he collected material for a larger synthesis of his long-term research on the emergence of geology as a new science in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. At the center of his research, he placed a comparison of the concepts and methods used to reconstruct pre-human history with those of human history. The results culminated in the Tarner Lectures, which he held in 1996 as a visiting professor at Trinity College in Cambridge . After his retirement from the University of California in 1998, Martin Rudwick returned to England and published his research results in detail in the works Bursting the Limits of Time: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Revolution (2005) and Worlds before Adam: the reconstruction of geohistory in the age of reform (2008).

Since 1998, Martin Rudwick lives near Cambridge and is "affiliated research scholar" at the University of Cambridge , Department of History of Science and Philosophy of Science (Department of History and Philosophy of Science).

honors and awards

For his achievements in the history of Earth Sciences awarded him the Geological Society of London in 1988 with the first ever this year Sue Tyler Friedman Medal of (Sue Tyler Friedman Medal). In 2007 he received the George Sarton Medal , the highly prestigious prize for the history of science from the History of Science Society (HSS) founded by George Sarton and Lawrence Joseph Henderson . Rudwick has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 2008 .

Publications (selection)

literature

  • Michael Meier: Bringing History to Science and Science to History. Martin Rudwick Wins Sarton Medal . In: Newsletter of the History of Science Society. Vol. 27, No. 2, April 2008. online
  • David Oldroyd : Martin Rudwick: Historian of Geology. Interviewed by David Oldroyd . In: Metascience, Springer Netherlands, Vol. 7 No. 1, March 1998, pp. 167-180 doi : 10.1007 / BF02913285

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ University of California, San Diego People, Martin JS Rudwick
  2. ↑ a b c Michael Meier: Bringing History to Science and .... on-line
  3. ^ David Oldroyd: Martin Rudwick: Historian of Geology. Interviewed by David Oldroyd . In: Metascience, Springer Netherlands, Vol. 7 No. 1, March 1998, pp. 167-180 doi : 10.1007 / BF02913285
  4. ^ A b c John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Fellows Martin JS Rudwick.
  5. ↑ On the term Whiggishness Whig history on en-wp
  6. ↑ Geological Society of London  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. List of the Sue Tyler Friedman Medal Winners@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.geolsoc.org.uk  
  7. ^ Sarton Medal - History of Science Society. In: hssonline.org. Retrieved February 12, 2016 .
  8. ↑ British Academy ( Memento of the original from January 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Elections to the Fellowship 2008, Professor Martin JS Rudwick @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.britac.ac.uk
personal data
SURNAME Rudwick, Martin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rudwick, Martin John Spencer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British historian of science
DATE OF BIRTH 1932